Israel is often described as a regional superpower, but the whole world knows that’s only because the Jewish State is backed to the hilt by the global superpower: the U.S. The fruits of Israeli policy towards the Palestinians, “the carnage, the broken bodies, and the dead children can all be laid at America’s door.”

Freedom Rider: American Guilt in Gaza

by BAR editor and senior columnist Margaret Kimberley

“In the eyes of the rest of the world, the American people become complicit in Israel’s crimes.”

Ever since Israel was founded in 1947, Americans have been fed a steady diet of propaganda which tells us that we have no better friend in the world than the zionist state. As always in foreign policy issues, it isn’t clear how “we,” that is to say the average citizen, is ever better off because of machinations emanating from Washington. The truth is exactly the opposite. The average American is worse off, much worse off because of Israel’s role as the undeclared 51st American state.

In every presidential election Americans who can’t support the two major party candidates are advised to get with the program and choose “the lesser of two evils.” There is no lesser evil in American politics, not when this country has doomed itself and its people by supporting nations like Israel which use state sponsored terror against millions of human beings in order to get what they want.

Israel is once again killing people in Gaza, a reported 139 so far and most of these victims are women and children. Of course this carnage is carried out with impunity, because Israel knows that the United States will support whatever actions it takes, no matter how awful they are. While the world community may rail at Israel when it kills people in Gaza, or Lebanon or wherever else it may choose, the U.S. uses its United Nations security council veto power to keep that body from taking even the most cosmetic and useless action. In the eyes of the rest of the world, the American people become complicit in Israel’s crimes.

“Israel knows that the United States will support whatever actions it takes, no matter how awful they are.”

The reward for the countless humiliations is more disrespect. America’s “friend” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu quite openly supported the presidential candidacy of Mitt Romney. There was not even a pretense of diplomatic niceties or respect for the country without whom Israel wouldn’t exist. Romney traveled to Israel with one of his chief fund raisers, casino magnate Sheldon Adelson, to recieve Netanyahu‘s blessing. Adelson spent nearly $50 million in support of Republican candidates across the country and Romney was only the most visible. As always, rich Americans use their influence to insure that no one gets any ideas about straying outside the sanctioned lines of discourse.

The openly evil Netanyahu does not suffer subtlety gladly. Despite Obama’s constant support of Israel, he cannot get any love back from the Israelis. So Netanyahu used the aftermath of an American election to make his point that he will do whatever he wants. He wins even if he seems to lose.

Israel also has an upcoming election to be held in January 2013. Israeli elections are very dangerous for neighboring people, who bear the brunt of that nation’s viciousness whenever it is time for the Israeli public to be appeased and comforted by the sight of dead Arabs.

“Israel would not be able to act without American arms and money.”

Barack Obama has a different problem. He must appear at least somewhat diffident about slaughtering people and give the impression of being a peace maker reluctant to do battle. Of course Israel makes his efforts all the more difficult by killing people in earnest when the president traveled to Myanmar. Despite his peace prize laureate photo ops, he was forced to back Israel in its terror directed at Gaza. “There is no country on earth that would tolerate missiles raining down on its citizens from outside its borders,“ said the man who routinely sends drones to Somalia, Pakistan, and Afghanistan to carry out his kill list orders.

It isn’t clear at all how Obama or any other American president can be thought of as the lesser of two evils when he publicly gives the go ahead for slaughter. No matter how reluctant American presidents seem to be in endorsing periodic Israeli killing sprees, Israel would not be able to act without American arms and money.

The carnage, the broken bodies, and the dead children can all be laid at America’s door. The United States is the world’s only super power and the perpetrator of this crime is America’s friend. Perhaps there will be no more silly questions about why “they” hate us. It isn’t because they don’t want democracy or hate our way of life. They hate us because we keep killing their people. “They” don’t see anything lesser about our evil.

Margaret Kimberley's Freedom Rider column appears weekly in BAR, and is widely reprinted elsewhere. She maintains a frequently updated blog as well as at http://freedomrider.blogspot.com.Ms. Kimberley lives in New York City, and can be reached via e-Mail at Margaret.Kimberley(at)BlackAgendaReport.com.

I can't expand on what I wrote as the oldest/first comment on last Nov. 14th blog essay by Glen Ford, "Obama's Second Term:Four More Years of Groundhog Days.", which I updated on several days. Is Israel the 51st State?

(Later: I just heard a piece of "Flashpoints", KPFA played on WBAI before the WBAI Evening News and it was cut off before the guest was identified at the end.* Looking at their website, it may have been Dennis Bernstein, producer/host interviewing John Pilger. The guest called Israel a "colony" of the U.S. He also quoted Richard Falk, UN Investigator for Human Rights, as calling Gaza like "the Warsaw ghetto".) Does Obama really "have to" support Israel? If Obama did a loud "Stop", held up support to back it up, as a head of state doing big murder all over the globe, Obama would have a lot of explaining to do. Why are "Progressives" giving Obama a pass? (For the same reason that so many American Jews - and nonJews - are keeping quiet.) Good essay Ms. Kimberly. I once asked a mother-in-law, a real Leftist, when she was my age now, how she was able to continue to keep her "fire" going and keep her opposition to the capitalist, imperialist U.S. "Grandpa" Al Lewis answered it best, when he said, on WBAI, that the fight kept him going. (The fight for justice, widespread "fronts".) He said he wouldn't see the end result in his lifetime, because the struggle was long, but it didn't matter. He also used to say, often, "Don't be good Germans." about Americans keeping quiet about U.S.government injustice, like the Germans did in the 1930s as Hitler was elected Chancellor and then passed laws making the injustices "legal". I remember the first time I saw a photo of a Star of David on a Israeli army tank, I caught my breath.

I found my art, xerographic on paper, that I'd sent dozens out, completed Jan.3, 2009 "Guernica, Warsaw, Fallujah, Gaza". I sent a photo of it a couple of days ago to many who never saw it on paper. It's available to the public.

*WBAI is back at 120 Wall St., NY NY but still does not have phone service after Hurricane/Superstorm Sandy. I support www.takebackwbai.org in opposition to the current majority on the Local Station Board (LSB), as well as current management of the Pacifica Network's community station in NYC. I just voted in the election for open seats on the LSB, supporting the faction that is in opposition to the current majority. News: WBAI's longtime show "Off the Hook" has posted an OPEN LETTER TO OUR LISTENERS FROM THE STAFF OF "OFF THE HOOK", 13Nov.2012, which I heard about last night, on the show. http://www.2600.com The letter the top listing on the home page.

“One unfortunate response to tragedy is a self-righteousness about one’s own condition, a seeking proof of one’s special place in the world, even in victimhood. One afternoon, I shared these thoughts with a new colleague, the Israeli vice chancellor of the Budapest-based Central European University. When he told me he was a survivor of Auschwitz, I asked him what lesson he drawn from this great crime. He explained that, like all victims of Auschwitz, he, too, had said, “Never again.” In time, though, he had come to realize that this phrase lent itself to two different conclusions: one was that never again should this happen to my people; the other that it should never again happen to any people. Between these two interpretations, I suggest nothing less than our common survival is at stake.”

(Mahmood Mamdani, Good Muslim, Bad Muslim)

Like Normal Finkelstein, I see the Palestinians as the heirs of the victims of Auschwitz, not the Israelis. I resent that my tax dollars support the misnamed IDF.

I’ve sent the usual feeble e-mails, made the usual feeble phone calls to elected representatives in our pathetic excuse for a government. However, I wish I were in Gaza with an automatic rifle doing something meaningful--like shooting Israelis.

*The same old crap.

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